Dec. 16 (Bloomberg) -- U.K. Transport Secretary Patrick
McLoughlin said he hasn’t ruled out expanding London’s Heathrow
Airport, days before a panel is due to make its recommendations
on how to ease regional congestion.

“If we’re going to compete in the global race, if we’re
going to have the right long-term future for the U.K., we must
make sure this country isn’t left behind,” McLoughlin said in
an interview on the BBC’s “Andrew Marr Show” yesterday.
“There are lots of different options available for us.”

With Heathrow, Europe’s busiest airport, and Gatwick close
to full, lawmakers are under pressure to add more runways in the
southeast, the most densely populated part of Britain. London
Mayor Boris Johnson has pledged to block expansion at Heathrow
in favor of a new base in the Thames estuary to avoid blighting
homes in the capital. In its last manifesto, Prime Minister
David Cameron’s Conservative party ruled out expanding Heathrow
before the next election.

When asked whether the best option would be to add a third
runway at Heathrow, McLoughlin said while the government would
keep its pledge to not expand the London hub before May 2015, no
option has been ruled out.

“What we said at the last general election is that we
would not build a third runway this Parliament,” he said. “We
will stick by our manifesto commitment.”

The government-appointed Airport Commission will release
its initial recommendations for airport expansion this week
before a final report in 2015. Commission Chairman Howard Davies
has said the U.K. needs more runway capacity in the southeast as
expanding regional airports and boosting the average load factor
of planes arriving at London’s existing bases won’t be enough.

“One of the things that will be clear when we’ve seen the
report from Howard Davies is that it’s not an immediate
problem,” McLoughlin said. “It is something that we’ve got to
get right, we’ve got the time to get it right.”